The heterosis and combining ability study was conducted in pearl millet involving 60 crosses and 32 parents for 10 quantitative traits to predict the gene action involved in inheritance of yield and yield contributing traits and to identify best general combiners and superior crosses. | 2020 9 10 2648-2660 International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 10 2020 Journal homepage http Original Research Article https Heterosis and Combining Ability Studies in Indigenous Collection of Pearl Millet Germplasm Pennisetum glaucum L. R. Br. M. Bala Barathi1 B. Vijaya Lakshmi1 P. Sanjana Reddy2 and Sk. Nafeez Umar3 1 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding Agricultural College Bapatla-522101 Andhra Pradesh India 2 Indian Institute of Millets Research Rajendranagar-500030 Hyderabad Telangana India 3 Department of Statistics and Computer Applications Agricultural College Tirupathi- 517501 Andhra Pradesh India Corresponding author ABSTRACT Keywords The heterosis and combining ability study was conducted in pearl millet involving Heterosis Grain 60 crosses and 32 parents for 10 quantitative traits to predict the gene action yield Pearl millet involved in inheritance of yield and yield contributing traits and to identify best and line tester general combiners and superior crosses. Among parents the line ICMA 04999 and testers 2325 2396 2306 2337 2348 and 2394 were the good general combiners Article Info for grain yield and could be used in hybridization programme to exploit their Accepted general combining ability. The components of variance due to gca and sca 20 September 2020 revealed predominance of non-additive gene action for all the traits. The cross Available Online ICMA 04999 2309 recorded high significant positive sca effect mid parent 10 October 2020 better parent heterotic effect and per se performance for grain yield. Introduction cytoplasmic male sterile lines helps in exploitation of heterosis for development of Pearl millet Pennisetum glaucum L. R. Br. hybrids. Selection of better parents is a is the important staple food crop in arid and prerequisite for exploitation of heterosis. semi-arid zones. It occupied sixth
